From the National Review Online:

"If the gay marriage battle hadn't already done so much to separate the idea of marriage and parenthood, an article like this could never have been written. Once we act as though children are anything other than the central reason for the public interest in marriage, we open the way to exactly what Emens offers."

This is Stanley Kurtz, a long and vocal opponent to gay marriage, writing in regards to polygamy. The exception I take to what he writes above is that heterosexuals themselves damaged the separation of marriage and parenthood long before homosexuals even had the idea that gay marriage might be possible. With divorce rates such as they are and the majority of children growing up in another "family" household other than that of their mother and their father, I think this pretty much put the nail in the coffin in regards to the link between parenthood and marriage. Since a vast number of heterosexual marriages with children end in divorce, I think it is heterosexuals who pioneered this disconnect. Gay marriage aside, if these conservatives are so concerned with protecting marriage and the traditional family unit then why not argue for limitations on divorce? No fault divorce in this country has done more to destroy the traditional family unit than my partner of 10 years and I ever will. And I speak as a product of the new traditional family unit where parents are divorced, remarried and have moved on leaving my family and it's memories in the dust.

¶ 3/23/2005 01:38:00 PM

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